ELEGANT' TRIBUTE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 7, 8 July 1922, Page 18

ELEGANT' TRIBUTE

THE KING AND THE NOBLE

DEAD

MOVING SCENES IN A WAR

CEMETERY.

FORGET-ME-NOTS FOR A SOLDIER.

(fIIOJI OtJlt OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 17tli May.

In the presence of about five hundred people, British and French, King George delivered in Terlincthun British Military Cemetery a noble speech eloquently phrased, through which ran'the note of eternal gratitude of the King and his Empire, and a firm wish to keep for ever green the memory of the 700,000 men of British blood who had made the supreme sacrifice in the' Great War. As the company- listened to At they seemed to be held by a spell, hanging on every word; but its lofty sentiment, its spirit of veneration, its ringing pathos, will have their echo in British hearts the world over. Tlie feeling uppermost in the minds of those who heard it was that it would bring solace and comfort to English homes still grieving after the lapse of years, that. the. fathers, ■ mothers, and wives of the fallen soldiers would have the supreme satisfaction of knowing that their sons and husbands lying in the rich brown earth of France were not forgotten by the King and country for whom they had given their lives. . Before the speech the King and Queen placed a wreath on the Cross of Sacrifice, and a silence of two minutes was observed. This last rite in the solemn pilgrimage was marked by a moving reference to France, the " tried and generous friend, who, with quick and ready sympathy, has set aside for ever the soil iii which they sleep," and by an earnest appeal to the living of our race to be true to the ideals for which the dead gave their lives. A TOUCHING TRIBUTE. The day was the third in the pilgrimage to military cemeteries made by the King. On the morning, Boulogne was in readiness for the coming of the King and Queen, aquiver with suppressed excitement. Before going to Terlincthun the King visited the large cemetery at Etaples, which skirts the railway, and is a reminder to British people travelling to and from Paris of the British sacrifices. Here about 11,000 of our men are buried. A touching incident marked the visit, which deeply impressed those who accompanied His Majesty. The mother of a soldier, Sergeant Matthews, who is buried there, sent a bouquet of forget-me-nots to Queen Mary, in Brussels, and expressed a wish that they be placed on his grave. Her wish was fulfilled. The Queen found the grave and piously laid the flowers upon it. When the King reached Wimereux, he motored, to the Hindu cemetery near by and .walked among the graves of his Indian subjects who. are laid to rest there. Then, returning to Wimereux, he was joined by the Queen, who came from Brussels and Ostend. A SACRED SILENCE. Meanwhile, those invited to terlincthus ceremony Were assembled, when French buglers -posted within the entrance gate sounded "Aux Champs," what time the members of the Imperial War Graves Commission and prominent local personalities were presented to Their Majesties, with whom were Princess Alice, the Earl of Athlone, Lord Haig, Lord Beatty, General Sir Fabian Ware, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Sir Robert Hudson, Sir James Allen, and other members of the War Graves Commission. MESSAGE TO THE EMPIRE. The representative of the Daily Telegraph writes that the King read the inscriptions on the tombstones and compared impressions with the Queen. When the Stone of Remembrance was reached, Their Majesties, led by MajorGeneral Sir F. Ware and the AdjutantGeneral, headed the cortege to the foot of the Cross of Sacrifice, where the official ceremony was to take place. On reaching the cross, a beautiful structure noble in conception, the King and Queen paused. "Grasping the full significance of this .monument of symbolic grandeur,' gleaming in the sun, this soulmoving reminder of collective sacrifice, it seemed to those of us nearby that the King and Queen were overcome by the emotion welling in their hearts. It was a silent prayer that was said there during those moments of sacred silence, broken only by the singing of. birds. Here a striking picture, not without its' touches of colour,- accentuated by the brilliant sunshine, met the eye." The cortege was divided on either side of the cross, and on a line with it were French troops. The King, in the service uniform of a British Field-Marshal, and the Queen, wearing a black satin cloak, stood in the centre. On either side of a spacious triangle of greensward were the privileged auditors. His Majesty advanced a few steps, and, in a clear voice, which could be heard at the farthest limits of the cemetery, and into which he imported much feeling, delivered what I venture to believe will be considered as one of the most eloquent speeches that has fallen from his lips. It was a message to the whole Empire, a message of tender sympathy to all of his subjects who had lost relatives in the war, for by his touching words he had not only the cemeteries of Belgium and France in mind, but the burial places of British soldiers which form an unbroken chain over the whole circuit of the earth. Speaking of the graves iv France, His Majesty evoked suppressed murmurs of approval when he declared that they were in .he keeping of a tried and generous friend.' And there was this prophecy, which will be hailed with satisfaction : throughout the Empire, that the last resting place of our soldiers will be reverently tended and preserved for all time. A deeply impressive part of the speech was the earnestness with. which His Majesty spoke of the desolation of war, and of Ins arden wish that, keeping our faith in God's purpose, the peoples of the earth will be drawn together in sanity and self-control. Standing beneath the Cross of Sacrifice, and facing the Stone of Remembrance, it was an eloquent pleas for universal peace that the King made; it was also a reminder that the sacrifice nd honour typified by our dead heroes should never be forgotten. SYMPATHY AND HOPE. This is what the King said: "For the past few days I have been on _ solemn pilgrimage in honour of a people who died for all free men. "At the close of that pilgrimage, on which I followed ways already marked by many footsteps of love and pride and grief, I should like to -. send a message to all who have lost those clear to them in the Great War, and in this the Queen joins me to-day amidst these surroundings so wonderfully typical of that single-hearted assembly of nations and of races which form our Empire. For here, in their last quarters, lie sons of every portion of that Empire, across, as it were,' the'threshold- of the' Mother Island ..winch .tliey guarded that free- (

dom might be saved in the uttermost _uds of the earth. - % . .- .

"For.this, a generation of our manhood offered it.olf without question, and almost without the need of a summons. Those proofs of virtue, which we honour here to-day, are to be found throughout the world and its waters—since we can truly say that the whole circuit of the earth is girdled with the graves of'our dead. Beyond the stately cemeteries of France, across Italy, through Eastern Europe in well-nigh unbroken chain they stretch, passing over the holy Mount of Olives itself to the farthest shores of the Indian and' Pacific Oceans —from Zeebrugge to Coronel, from Dunkirk to the hidden wildernesses of East Africa.

"But in this fair land of France, which sustained the utmost fury of the. long strife, our brothers are numbered, alas! by hundreds of thousands. They lie in the keeping of a tried and generous friend, a resolute and chivalrous comrade in arms, who, with ready and quick sympathy, has set aside for ever the soil in which they sleep, so .that we ourselves and our descendants may for all time reverently tend and preserve their restingplaces. And here, at Terlincthun, the shadow of his monument falling almost across their graves, the greatest of French , soldiers —of all soldiers—stands guard over them. And this is just, for side by side with the descendants of his incomparable armies, they defended his land in defending their own. "Never before in history have a people thus dedicated and maintained individual memorials to their fallen, and, in the course of my pilgrimage, I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come. than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war. And I feel that, so long as we have faith in God's purposes, we cannot but believe that the existence of these visible memorials will eventually serve to draw all peoples together in sanity and self-control, even as it has already set the relations between our Empire and our Allies on the deep rooted basis of a common heroism and a common agony. "Standing beneath this Cross of Sacrifice, facing the great Stone of Remembrance, and compassed by these sternly simple headstones, we remember, and must charge our children to remember, that, as our dead were equal in sacrifice, so are they equal in honour, for the greatest and the least of them have proved that sacrifice and honour are no vain things, but truths by which.the world lives. ■. "Many of the cemeteries I have visited in the remoter and still desolate districts of this sorely stricken land, where it has not yet been possible to replace the wooden crosses by headstones,, have been made into beautiful gardens which are lovingly cared for by comrades of the war. I rejoice I was fortunate enough to see these in the spring, when the returning pulse of the year tells of unbroken life that goes forward. in the face of apparent loss and wreckage; and I fervently pray that, both as nations and individuals, we may so order our lives after the ideals for which bur I brethren died that we may be able to meet their gallant souls once more, humbly but unashamed." FRENOH TRIBUTE. G«n_ra_ die Castelnau, who had followed very closely the uplifting sentiments expressed by the King, then spoke. The British graves from Boulogne to Belfort, he assured His Majesty, would be jealously guarded by France, which was .profoundly grateful for the esteem and attachment of tlie British nation, whose sons had shed their blood with the eons of France in the cause of honour and independence. Very eloquently the whit.haired general echoed the .wish' of the King for a drawing together of tluj nations, and. wound up his touching speech with a glowing homage to the dead, who were martyrs, in the cause of peace. They had passed their Calvary; they slept; but they would rise again— the devoted peace-maker, of the warldi, ready to defend the light against aggression and dishonour. TOUR OF THE CEMETERY. The oratorical part of the ceremony was now ended, and tlie King . andi Queen began a tour of the cemetery. First a beautiful wreath of red roses, laurels, and palms was placed: by the King at the foot of the Cross of Sacrifice. To'it was attached a, card beaiingi the words : "From the King, 13th May, 1922." Another wreath from the Franco-British War Graves Committee was deposited, and a third; "From the French Army to its British Comrades." The two companies from the Eighth Regiment, of Calais, drawn up at either side of the cross, tie sun glinting on their shiny hehnente, stood at attention. Following in the wake of the King and Queen, erne had an opportunity of taking in the ensemble of this Goof s Acne of valiant dead, surely one of the most beautiful as it is the most complete of the many military cemeteries in France and Belgium. It is admirably situated! a short distance from the main i»ad between Boulogne and Wimereux. Stretching from the wall of the Chateau of Terlincthun, it extends in the direction of the massive Napoleon column towering from a wooded eminence. Erected to cc____s__>r_te the Grand Armee, this monument dominates the countryside. for miles. Standing beside the ' great Ooes of Sacrifice in the shadow of the chateau wall, the monument looms in its immensity i midway between the two stone structures, the Record Office and the chapel, which will figure in every British military cemetery on French and Belgian soil. On tire left undulating fields of groen, on the right rising ground covered with golden gorse. There is a different and more intimate aspect from the other end beside the Stone of Remembrance, bearing the j inscription : r'Th_ir name liveth for evermore." It' /s the sea you behold; when there is no whistling wind you can hear its murmuring, and in days of clear atmosphere, such as we had' to-day, you can . distinguish the home coastline. There are 3200. British soldiers . buried - here. Regular alignments of Portland stone mark their resting places. Between the rows there are trim, grass, paths, and before and behind the stones narcissi and wallflowers are blooming, with here and there lobelia, forget-me-not, and smiling pansies. When the time comes for these floweTs to fade away, other colours and other fragrances will fill the cemetery. It will be the reign of roses, which this summer at last will climb up the tombstones. Terlincthan is a British military cemetery, but it has given repose to the bodies of something like 130 German soldiers. Their graves, marked off from those of the-British soldiers by a gravel path, axe indicated by wooden crosses which bear their names, their regiments, and their rank. They died from their wounds in our base hospitals, these German soldiers;-death wiped out their quarrel, if quarrel they had.,' and so they lie in peace in a British cemetery. The Great Leveller, tire appeaser of human hates, willed that it should be so. AT THE STONE OF REMEMBRANCE. 'When, in making tlie circuit of the cemetery, Their Majesties reached tho Stone of Remembrance, the most solemn : moment of tho ceremony arrived. They .stood ■ side by side with bent heads: in front of tho stone, and behind them1 were Earl Bealty and Earl Haig, with Sir F. Wale and the Adjutant-General on either side. Ob a' grass mound behind the stone .were Rrench soldiers, .with their

colour and rifles, standing at the full salute. A moment of religious silence, and then trumpet blasts stole, faintly at [ first, but increasing in volume, over the hill on the left, with its crest of golden gorse. There was no mistaking the first notes of these trumpet blasts. Mournfully, full of plaintive wailing, they came to us borne by the breeze, they sounded full of anguish. It was "The Last Post,", sounded by invisible Coldstream Guards. For a few moments the requiem of the dead warriors lasted. All heads were bent. Every heart was full of emotion. When the last note died away in a tremulous crescendo, the King and Queen inclined before the Stone of Remembrance. Her Majesty, placed a wreath of purple-tinted carnations at the foot of the stone, and the cortege resumed is itinerary until the whole circuit' of the cemetery was completed. Of the three thousand graves, none was missed. Their occupant, hailed from all parts of the British Empire, and '.officers and humble privates are, in the words of Jean Paul Riohter, who wrote in an age when Germany applied herself to peaceful arts with no thoughts of killing, men in order to gain world hegemony, "sleeping in eternal youth and immortality " When at last the notes had died away it was a quiet procession which turned to the entrance gate. But on their way the King and Queen stopped and called to them Mrs. Kipling, the poet's wife, and the mother of a lost son, and spoke with kind words and kind looks to her. And so to the gate, where the King gave a final "thousand thanks for your care for our dead" to General de Castelnau, and the Queen said to him: "How kindly you spoke of us—si gentiment." THE VOICE OF ENGLAND. The King's moving speech has found cordial welcome in France. The Temps says: "At last \ye hear the voice of England. Her. King has spoken, and what he has said goes to the heart of Frenchmen. For the King, strictly as he keeps to the constitutional role, has chosen perfectly the place, the words, and the hour. . . Those who lie buried sacrificed themselves for England and France united. As the King said, they defended our country in defending theirs. If the two nations separate, it will be in vain they fell; it will be in vain that millions of other men gave their lives. Who can bear such a thought?"